Met Police tests live facial-recognition cameras in Oxford Circus, makes four arrests

In a live-facial-recognition trial at Oxford Circus, Met Police operated a mobile van that converted the facial features of passersby into biometric codes and compared them with a watchlist refreshed each morning, deleting data for non-matches immediately. Within three hours, four people were handcuffed for a range of offences, including theft, after officers received alerts on their devices showing a similarity rating and a photo from the watchlist.

An operator monitored the feed inside the van while about eight officers stood on the street and decided whether to stop each suspect. The force points to a six-month Croydon pilot that reduced overall crime and intends to install static cameras in locations such as the West End and Soho, with £11.6 million from the Home Office allocated for LFR technology. While some by-standers expressed unease, the Met says the system has been independently tested by the National Physical Laboratory and found no statistical racial or gender bias, and it reports over 1,600 arrests in the past year for serious crimes.